How Pregnancy Affects Your Body

Ready or Not, It's Time to Meet Your Body

If you haven't really gotten comfortable in your own skin, pregnancy just might fix that in a jiffy. The whole process (from trying to conceive to pregnancy and all the way until after you give birth and are breastfeeding) is an eye-opening one, and not just because of the whole making of a new life thing, but also because of how much it forces you to get superacquainted with these parts of your body.

Even though they might not be the star of your pregnancy, feet become a big part of pregnancy for women over the course of the nine to 10 months. Feet swell, they need to be rubbed, and they even change sizes — who knew your feet could be so interesting (and painful)?

If you've never been comfortable down there, pregnancy is basically a crash course in all things lady parts. Obviously, your vagina gets a lot of attention during this time, but pregnancy (or hopes for pregnancy) also has women getting aquatinted with their cervixes and fluids.

Pregnancy is a bloody experience. There's spotting, monthly blood draws, pricks, bloody shows, and mucus plugs . . . and that's all before you even give birth. But it's all good because getting comfortable with your own blood prepares you for the real bloody show: childbirth and the days that follow it.

Even if you had no idea what they did before pregnancy, you can bet you know exactly what a placenta, uterus, and cervix do post pregnancy. And the conversations you have around heartburn will rival most 80-year-olds.

Boobs are pretty much front and center the whole process. Between soreness, growth, leakage, shrinkage, breastfeeding, and nipple size, you've probably never talked about your breasts so much in your whole entire life.

Women tend to obsess over their butts to begin with, but pregnancy puts your backside front and center in your mind. And it's not just because of its aesthetics, but also because of gas, constipation, and hemorrhoids.